The following relates to the information processing arts, information storage and retrieval arts, classification and clustering arts, and related arts.
The comparison of objects, such as vectors, is an important quantitative analysis operation for many applications, including but not limited to: vector analysis; image processing; document processing; data retrieval; clustering operations; classification operations; and so forth. Not surprisingly, there are a wide range of comparison operators available for comparing different objects. In one organizational scheme, comparison operators can be divided into similarity measures and distance or divergence measures. A similarity measure is characterized in that its value increases when comparing more similar objects, and has a largest value for identical or nearly identical objects. On the other hand, a distance or divergence measure is characterized in that its value increases with increasing difference, that is, increasing distance or divergence, between the objects, and has a zero or small value for identical or nearly identical objects.
For generality, the terms “comparison measure” or “comparison” or other similar phraseology is used herein to encompass both similarity measures and distance or divergence measures.
Existing comparison measures readily facilitate relative comparisons, for example determining whether object “A” is more similar to object “B” than to object “C”. However, this information does not inform as to whether objects “A” and “B” are actually comparable to each other. The answer to this latter question depends upon the “context” or “environment” or “setting”. For example, consider similarity between a dog and a bull and a fish. In the context of animals, a dog and a bull may be deemed to be quite similar—they are both mammals, both air-breathing, both have four legs, both are typically domesticated, and so forth, whereas the fish is more dissimilar in all these aspects and numerous others, and other animals such as an amoeba are still more dissimilar. However, in the context of four-legged domesticated mammals, the dog and the bull are rather dissimilar—the dog is carnivorous, likely to be a pet, has clawed feet, and so forth, whereas the bull is herbivorous, a farm animal, has hoofed feet, and so forth. In this context, a bull might be deemed to be dissimilar to dog, whereas an animal such as a cat might be deemed to be similar to a dog in the context of four-legged domesticated animals.